THE WYRDING WAY

It seems that, in Polish neo prog circles, as COLLAGE and its successor SATELLITE go, so goes long detached offshoot BELIEVE, and I might even add vice versa. Some time after BELIEVE's 2017 triumph "Seven Widows" came the first COLLAGE album in a quarter century, With the splendid "Over and Out", in addition to picking up where they and SATELLITE had left off, Woljek Szadowski had been listening intently to Mirek Gil's BELIEVE, and, apart from incorporating those atmospheres, got caught in the revolving vocalist saga that has dogged both groups throughout their colorful history. To close the loop for the here and now, Gil has taken lessons from the COLLAGE reunion for good and bad, and returned with a new vocalist (duh) Jinian Wilde in "The Wyrding Way". It also coincidentally begins with a 20+ minute track followed by mostly pieces in the 10 minute range from there. If you aren't confused yet, I endeavor to finish that job in the next few minutes.

The titular expression refers to the use of witchcraft and such to plot one's own destiny. Appropriately the music here is perhaps a tad more in the spacey realm than we are used to, with the virtuosic Satomi mostly occupied with keyboards rather than the violin which dominated "Seven Widows". Of course, Gil is still sizzling on expressive occasionally Frippian lead guitars and even a bit of acoustic guitar here and there, and Jinian luckily hails from the school of BELIEVE vocalists. While the rhythm section cannot ever match the freneticism of COLLAGE/SATELLITE, this is almost uniformly excellent, with only "Be My Tears" sacrificing, so to speak, some quality for message.

My two complaints are the slashing of violin bits and their infusion into the arrangements rather than soli, and this continued tendency among our cult favorites to string together concepts into overly long epics for the sake of it. For instance, "Wicked Flame" should be the centerpiece but substitutes a wall of sound for the subtle tension and intensity in its last 4 or 5 minutes. Both "Shadowland" and "Shine" more than compensate and are my pics here, though the massive opener runs a close second.

From the perspective of a student of this musical family tree, even mediocre productions are worth the time, but this is anything but. Kudos again to Mirek Gil and company, and may you and your former bandmates continue to spur each other on in spellbinding competition where we are all winners.